Newly Developed Modeling Application for Quench Characteristic Analysis of YBCO Pancake Coil

We demonstrate a newly developed three-dimensional (3-D) heat conduction analysis model for a yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) pancake coil by including the turn-to-turn and layer-to-layer heat conduction in the one-dimensional heat transport equation. The YBCO tape is represented by two thermal components, which are in thermal contact through a thermal resistance. The turn-to-turn and layer-to-layer thermal contacts are defined with thermal conduction coefficients of the insulation. For validating the accuracy of the simulation model, a quench propagation analysis of a racetrack pancake coil is performed, and the simulation results are compared with the experimental results presented in a published paper. The comparison shows that the simulation model can give a reliable forecast of the quench propagation characteristics. When considering the reduction of the thermal conduction efficiency induced due to temperature variation near the hotspot, the simulation results are in high consistency with the experimental results. A 3-D surface map of the temperature profile is displayed to show the impact of the thermal conductivity coefficient of the insulation. The simulation model is proven to be a powerful tool to study the quench propagation characteristics of the YBCO coil.